Santorum soars in the South, takes North Dakota. Ohio? It’s close!

As a former GOP afterthought, Santorum shows his followers that slow and steady can at least stay in the race.

Benefiting from strong support from evangelical Christians, the staunch social conservative notched Super Tuesday wins in Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota.

With 100 percent of Oklahoma’s precincts reporting, the former Pennsylvania senator took 33.8 percent of the vote, with Gingrich and Romney at about 28 percent of the vote. Ron Paul has ran last at 10.1 percent.

In Tennessee, Santorum has 37.3 percent of the vote, with 100 percent of precincts reporting. Romney ran second with 28 percent of the vote, while Gingrich trailed with 24 percent and Paul lagged behind with 9 percent.

In North Dakota, Santorum outdistanced Paul in the state’s caucuses (obtaining nearly 40 percent of the vote), with Romney and Gingrich running behind.

In the 2008 primaries, Sen. John McCain won Tennessee and Oklahoma, but Mitt Romney won North Dakota.

Santorum collected 25 delegates from Tennessee, 14 from Oklahoma and 11 from North Dakota.

The biggest prize — Ohio — remained too close to call late tonight. With 100 percent of precincts counted, Romney held a narrow margin of victory with 38 percent to Santorum’s 37 percent.

(AP Photo/ Sharon Ellman)

However, long before all votes in the battleground state were counted, Santorum held a victory speech in Steubenville, Ohio.

“You win a few, you loose a few,” Santorum said to the cheering crowd. “But as it looks right now, we’re gonna get at least a couple of gold medals, and a whole packet of silver medals.”

Ohio is seen as one of the most important states to win for Republican candidates. In fact, no Republican candidate has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio in the primaries. Still, Tim Vercellotti, associate professor of political science and director of the Western New England University, thinks winning the state might not be all that important.

“No matter who wins Ohio, it will probably be a narrow victory,” Vercellotti says. “If the winner is Gov. Romney, it is not going to be the knockout punch he hoped to get. If it’s Santorum, the complexion of this race changes again. For Santorum to survive the onslaught of the advertising Romney and his supporters have leashed in Ohio, changes the dynamic of the race to suggest that Santorum has more staying power than people thought.”

Vercellotti believes that this is also true even if Santorum doesn’t win, but is beaten by a narrow margin. He also thinks Santorum can have some good weeks ahead, as the primaries move southwards.

“This means that Santorum lives to fight another day, he can continue to raise money, and continue argue to his supporters that he is a viable candidate,” Vercellotti says. “Also, the campaign moves on through the South now, where Santorum will find a more receptive audience than in other parts of the country.”

But as several southern states are having primaries, Vercellotti points out that it would benefit Santorum to have Gingrich out of the way so that he can pick up more of the anti-Romney votes. After winning his home state of Georgia Tuesday night, Gingrich is staying in the GOP race.

“This makes Santorum strive harder,” Vercellotti says. “If Santorum is able to beat or at least finish before Gingrich in southern states, the arguments becomes more viable that it’s time for Gingrich to call it a day.”